The Man Who Lied the World into War

The story of Codename Curveball and one of the most incredible fabrications in modern history

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The Man Who Lied the World into War

The Man Who Lied the World into War

An Iraqi engineer arrives in Germany late 1999 and applies for asylum. He immediately starts to tell the German Intelligence Service BND a detailed account on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. His most famous account is that of seven mobile biological trucks which could function as small factories and be driven around in Iraq – and a tale about a serious accident with a number of deaths.

This documentary reveals that 40 days before the war UN-inspectors had inspected 11 sites nominated by Curveball as central to his account. However the inspectors had concluded that there was not the faintest possibility that these sites had ever seen a chemical or biological weapon.

Eyewitnesses reveal how people inside the CIA raised serious concern about Curveball’s account before Secretary Powell used Curveball in his presentation to the UN. This concern was fuelled by the German intelligence service BND who wrote directly to the director of CIA.

The story of Curveball offers a unique voyage into the secret world of international politics and secret services – done through one man’s lies which killed hundreds of thousands of his fellow countrymen.